Second Year
by atrfla
Summary: It's Alyssa Salinger's 2nd year at Hogwarts, and she's so excited to keep supporting her beloved Ravenclaw House through her first normal year at school. Only, it's anything but normal, once again. When the Houses are dissolved for an attempt at inter-House unity, the Hogwarts Games begin. Fourth in the Salinger Year series- read the prequels: Fifth Year, Fourth Year, & First Year!


Chapter 1: Finally Not First

"Anything from the trolley, dears?"

A recognizable, kindly witch smiled down at the three of us- my cousin and confidant Brooklyn Vawdrey, my other best friend Rossalene Chung, and me. We half-sat, half-lay haphazardly on the seats of our compartment, talking, laughing, teasing, dreaming. All three of us bolted straight up, however, when we heard that magical voice.

"Three Cauldron Cakes," I sighed happily, digging into my pocket for my money pouch.

Brooklyn already had her matching leather pouch, given to her when she was ten for Christmas just like mine, out and was rifling through it. "Three Chocolate Frogs," she said blissfully at the exact same time.

Ross was loudest of us all as she held up six shining silver Sickles. "One container of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, please!"

But the trolley witch was serving the car across from us first. We slumped in disappointment, robbed of sweet treats for a few more long moments.

Once we had our sweets, though, Brooklyn dispelled with the pleasantries as she ripped open her Chocolate Frog. Sitting up stick-straight on the bench we were sharing, she got down to business. "We're second-years now, and you know what that means: Quidditch!" she declared, as if the two of us hadn't been having trouble wrestling our brooms into the overhangs of the compartment not an hour before. "Aly, did you practice for Beater over the summer?"

"Of _course_ ," I drawled, ripping off a chunk of my favorite sweet- a chocolatey, creamy Cauldron Cake- and popping it into my mouth. "Dad helped me practice, when he was home on the weekends- because he used to be a Chaser, he really knows how to chuck a ball. Will Greene doesn't stand a chance!"

"Ross," Brooklyn continued, eyes snapping to the third of our little trio. "Did you decide what position you were going to try out for? You've had all summer to pick- we've got to start training you soon if you want a spot on the Hufflepuff team!"

Rossalene shrugged and looked down at her hands, wrung together in her lap. She was wearing a wonderful Muggle disguise, all yellow sweater vests and grey slacks, whereas Brooklyn and I simply wore the grey skirts and white button-down shirts of our Hogwarts uniforms. "I don't know," she mumbled, toying with a loose thread on the hem of her yellow sweater. "I might just stay in the stands and- cheer you two on. I wouldn't want to go against either of you anyway, you're so passionate that I'd lose for sure."

Brooklyn howled with laughter before realizing Ross was serious. "But you'd be so bloody amazing as a Chaser!" she pleaded.

Our Hufflepuff friend shrugged. "I don't like the school brooms, they're too jerky- and Mum and Da would never let me get one of my own. That's too costly. Plus, last year, Sir Sutherland told me that I would need a lot of work to ever be able to fly a broom well. I don't think I'd be great at Quidditch."

Brooklyn, between bites of Chocolate Frog, tried to persuade Rossalene to change her mind as I sat in the corner and speed-read through Miranda Goshawk's _The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2_. I had just begun to read Chapter Four, skimming over information about the uses of the Severing Charm, when Brooklyn grabbed my arm from across the compartment. She had switched to sit over by Rossalene, hence the reach. "Come on, Aly, you _have_ to tell Ross she's got to try out! What will we do if we're not all on a team? It'll be pure _madness._ "

"If I don't join a team, we'll all be able to sit in the stands together during the Gryffindor versus Hufflepuff match!" Rossalene offered cheerily. "If I _do_ join a team, we won't ever get to sit together at a match like last year!"

Brooklyn folded her arms and blew a lock of her long, wavy hair out of her darkly tanned face. "But I want to go against you as a Chaser-"

"Let Ross alone," I told her, squeezing her hand. "It'll be nice to always have a dedicated fan, right? And when you're a famous Chaser with the Ballycastle Bats, we'll _both_ be in the stands cheering you on."

My dark-haired cousin, who took more after our twin mothers than I did, cocked her head to the side. She considered for a moment, then said, "Fine. But I think I've changed my mind about the Ballycastle Bats. I want to play for Puddlemere United instead."

"Didn't you say the Melrose Magpies were the best team in the league?" Rossalene piped up. "Why not play for _them?_ "

" _Montrose_ Magpies," I corrected before Brooklyn could get all hoity-toity about team names.

Brooklyn huffed and waved her hands at us. "The Montrose Magpies are so overrated. Ballycastle Bats, too, and-" She held a finger to my lips right as I opened them so I couldn't speak. "And the Holyhead Harpies, Aly. I know that you like them, but the Magpies are from Scotland and the Bats are Irish and the Harpies are from _Wales_ , and I want to lead a _proper_ English team."

"But the Holyhead Harpies are all girls."

"So?"

"So it would be a rather jolly time playing on an all-girls team!" I contested. "Who cares if they're from Wales or not?"

" _I_ care-"

"The conductor says we're nearing Hogwarts."

The three of us all looked up from our arguments to see two blonde girls blocking the way out of our compartment- one tall and lean, one short and curvy. They were, in order, Katy Beaurepaire and Maile Quentin, two best friends who were in our year, but Slytherins like Brooklyn. Katy, who known throughout the year as the best at astronomy, was prim, proper, and sassy; Maile was more interested in fashion and fashion design than anything else. Katy, looking down at us with sharp green eyes that were just a few shades darker than my own jade irises, was the one who had spoken.

"It'll probably be about another hour. You'd best start getting dressed," stylish Maile added with a toss of her perfectly styled golden locks, and then the two friends vanished to warn the rest of the train. As usual, we were sitting towards the end of the Hogwarts Express, so after a few moments we saw the pair hurry back up towards the front car.

When the train pulled into Hogsmeade Station just after dusk, all three of us were decked out in our full Hogwarts uniforms: grey skirts, white button-down collared shirts, grey sweater vests, and black robes emblazoned with our House crests. That meant the blue-and-bronze eagle of Ravenclaw for me, the house where dwelled the smartest, the most creative, and the overall best students of the year. Both of my parents, Benjamin Salinger and Hesper Black, had been members of Ravenclaw House- and no one had been more pleased than the two of them when I was sorted into the same House exactly a year ago today. Slytherin-Sorted Brooklyn, who as usual didn't have a hair out of place, even wore her Slytherin house tie already.

"It's only the first feast of the year," I groaned to her as I climbed off the train, cage carrying my tawny Northern Saw-Whet owl, Peltie, in hand. Our trunks would be left on the Hogwarts Express and retrieved somehow later, meaning we wouldn't have to lug them all the way up to our dormitories.

"I just want to show my House pride," Brooklyn clipped, all wide-eyed and innocent. I knew that the harmless act was a lie. My best friend had the sharpest tongue in all of England.

We waited for Rossalene to follow us, Brooklyn even extending a hand to help her down from the train until all three of us stood solidly on the Hogwarts platform. Instinctively, the three of us turned towards Professor Maduthy- the short, stout, grey-haired witch wearing a crooked witch's hat, the professor who taught Care of Magical Creatures at the school and who was also the Hogwarts gamekeeper. Every year she brought first-years across the lake and into a sheltered cove, from which they would make the trek up to the huge double doors of Hogwarts for their Sorting before the first feast of the year. I remembered my clumsiness last year, nearly tipping the boat over, slipping on the pebbly floor of the cove. But _this_ year…

Someone seized the backs of our robe collars before we could join the gaggle of first-years surrounding the professor.

"Sillies!" that someone scolded us. "We're second-years now, so we go in the carriages!"

I turned to see my cousin and her best friend, two of my fellow Ravenclaws who were also my neighbors, respectively Helen MacDougal and Millie Thresher. All three of us lived in the small wizarding community just outside of London called Rowena's Borough. I'd heard of other wizarding communities named after the Hogwarts founders four, namely Godric's Hollow (birthplace of Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived), the Slytherin Quarter (a dark and dangerous place that was said to be haunted by the evil spirits of every Dark witch and wizard who ever lived), and Helga's Home for Wizarding Orphans (a cheery place that had been founded only in the last fifty years due to an abundance of orphans after the Second Wizarding War, but that was still quite famous among wizardkind). But I would've known Helen, although not really Millie, even if we didn't live only a few streets away from one another. My father's younger sister, Breya Salinger, had married a Hufflepuff man named Walt MacDougal who had been in my father's year at school. Helen and I had been born barely a month apart in the year 2029, almost six months after my mother Hesper's twin sister gave birth to my eldest cousin- you guessed it- Brooklyn Vawdrey. Although Brooklyn and Helen weren't really related, they still got along fairly well because they had a cousin in common. Me.

"Carriages?" Rossalene asked.

Helen, who'd spoken, nodded fiercely. Her hair was coming out of the two neat braids that Millie and I had created in our carpool on the way to King's Cross that morning, in wisps of golden-brown. "Yes, the invisible carriages! Goodness, Aly, didn't your parents tell you about them this morning?"

Millie pointed with her free hand towards a line of black carriages, reins attached to nothing in particular, snaking up the hill towards the distant castle- our home away from home, the place where we learned everything we would need to know to survive as young witches in the Wizarding World, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. "Those carriages," she said, shifting the cage she carried from her left hand to her right hand and back to her left hand. In the cage yowled two sister cats- Mary, who was Millie's, and Carrie, who was Helen's. The tabby twins mewed happily and tried to reach their orangey-brown paws through the bars of their cage to catch the invisible insects flitting around us. I knew from last year that they were good hunters- when black mice had invaded the school last year as a warning of horrors to come from an angry spirit's attack on Hogwarts, Mary and Carrie had shown up without fail almost every night with dead black mice in their tiny mouths. They were considerably bigger now, though, so I could only imagine what kind of prey they could catch.

I grasped Peltie's cage tighter. "What pulls them?"

Millie shrugged. "Who knows?"

Just then, the front carriage began to magically move, bumping over a rocky path heading up the hill to the castle lit up golden from its many windows.

"Do we just choose one?" Ross cried desperately.

Helen was already heading for the closest carriage, the door of which flapped open in the rising September wind, revealing an empty interior. "Follow me!" she yelled over her shoulder.

With five of us in a carriage, plus three cages containing four good-sized pets, it was sort of full inside. We crowded in anyway- the three of us Ravenclaws and the two cats on one side, with Rossalene, Brooklyn, and the pair of owls on the other side. It was stuffy and, after a few cramped minutes, smelled like owl droppings, but we managed.

"I'm going to get _so_ many points for Ravenclaw House this year," Helen bragged, tossing her wavy hair. "I've been studying all summer, ever since my birthday party. I'm going to know _everything._ "

"But you're horrid at Transfiguration," Millie pointed out.

Helen beamed. "So I'll study extra hard for that!"

"This year's going to be a _lot_ harder than our last year," I warned her. "After all, it's our last year before we begin taking the two extra classes."

"Plus, people will start showing off their specialties this year," Brooklyn shrewdly noted.

Millie sighed and added, "We already know Katy's the best at astronomy."

"She just has a mind for memorizing those planets that the rest of us couldn't ever hope to have," Rossalene mumbled with a grandiose sigh.

"I hear Nick's quite good at Transfiguration," said Helen, fluttering her eyelashes dreamily. "He's also very handsome, don't you think?"

"He's Aly's _boyfriend,_ though, remember?" Millie winked at me after her teasing.

I flushed hot red. "Nick is not my- my _boyfriend!_ That's disgusting. Just because I was talking to him on the platform last year does not-"

But Millie and Helen were already recounting the tale of getting off the Hogwarts Express to go to Helen's house for my younger cousin's birthday party at the beginning of the previous summer.

"She met Nick's _parents-_ "

"Apparently he told his parents about her!

"We had to _yell_ at her to get her to snap out of it and come with us."

"They're obviously _madly_ in _looooooooove_ ," Helen giggled. She bit her lip slightly. "Pity. He is _so_ good-looking."

"And she positively shouted _See you next year_ to him," Millie finished with relish.

"We're only twelve," Rossalene worried-

"Speak for yourself," Brooklyn, who was the oldest of us, muttered. "I'm nearly thirteen."

-my Hufflepuff friend ignored her and kept going. "Aren't we a wee bit young to be dating?"

I threw up my hands. " _We're not dating!_ "

Our carriage rolled to a jerky stop.

Helen gave me a skeptical smile. " _Sure_ , Aly," she chirped condescendingly as she climbed out of the carriage with the cats' cage in hand. Millie followed her, then Rossalene, then Brooklyn, and finally I stepped out, grumbling about the injustice of it all. I stopped, however, when my eyes fell upon the majestic sight in front of me.

Hogwarts, all aglow in candlelight, rose high into the sky before me in a picture of turrets and towers and grey stone. Two huge double doors blocked my way inside, with a set of stone steps leading up to them. Helen and Millie were already halfway up the stairs, lugging their cats' cage between them. Brooklyn and Ross loitered at the foot of the stairs, Rossalene with Peltie's cage in hand, waiting for me to join them. I hurried over to my best friends, taking Peltie's cage from Rossalene in a swift ducking movement. "Do we just… enter?"

"I suppose so," Brooklyn said doubtfully, eyeing where the droves of students were disappearing into Hogwarts through the doors.

Rossalene began to skip up the steps. "Follow me, you slowcoaches!"

Brooklyn gathered up her robes, and with the confidence of a _Witch Weekly_ model and the grace of a dancer, she followed Ross. Maycott hooted from the cage dangling from her fingertips.

I scrambled after them. "Wait for me!"

Entering the Great Hall provided the same rush of excitement that it had last year, for my Sorting. Only this time, it wasn't coupled with a tingling nervousness, just a feeling of relief as thunder echoed through the room and the enchanted ceiling began to show dark clouds gathering and raindrops falling in sheets of water.

"I'm glad we're inside!" I shouted to Rossalene over the thunder and chatter that was slowly beginning to fill the Great Hall.

"What?" she shouted back as Brooklyn broke away from us with a wave to sit at the Slytherin table with her five roommates.

"I'm glad," I yelled almost in her ear, "that we're inside!"

She shrugged at me, still unable to hear; I would have screamed myself raw, I'm sure, if three of her Hufflepuff roommates hadn't appeared and whisked her away to the badger table.

The thunder faded, and I saw Millie and Helen struggling through the crowds about a quarter of a ways up the Ravenclaw table. I headed for them, but a slim pale hand reached up from the crowd and pulled me down.

Even sitting, I was six inches taller than Lanie Kelling- possibly more. Black-haired, plump Shawnee Haven grinned at me from across the table. "Tall and short," she stated before lapsing back into her thoughts.

Lanie and Shawnee were my best friends in Ravenclaw, closely followed by Millie, Helen, and Polly Lider, all three of whom soon joined us at the table. Lanie was tiny and slender, sure, but Polly was even daintier. My smallest roommate was lightly tanned and stick-skinny, with short and wispy sand-colored hair and eyes the color of a clear blue sea. Lanie had her same skin, hair that was only a shade or two more brown, and green-blue eyes, but the two weren't related at all, despite their similar petite structures.

Shawnee was the only one out of the six of us who had dark skin. It was dark brown, like tea without cream or milk, and her eyes were that same color, as were Millie's. Shawnee's hair, in dark curls clustered over her head and twisting around her ears, was as black as the night. She too was short, but she was thick and stout and broad-shouldered, therefore making her very different from the rest of us. But she _was_ one of us, no matter what.

Lanie hugged me. "I missed you this summer!" She cast a glance at her best friend, who was so lost in the deep well of her mind that we could've lit her on fire with our wands and she wouldn't have noticed. "Don't worry, Shawnee did too."

Polly nodded along. "Helen's party was fun, but I got pretty lonely after it," she murmured. "My brother is only eight, so all he did is play with the neighborhood kids. He didn't want to look at my schoolbooks at all."

"Not a Ravenclaw, then?" Millie pressed.

"Most likely not," the original speaker mumbled.

"When will he be coming here, to Hogwarts?" Lanie asked as thunder boomed again above us, coupled with a brilliant white flash of lightning from the bewitched roof above us.

Polly looked thoughtful as the noise subsided somewhat. "He turns nine this year," she whispered to herself, "ten the next, eleven the next… so he ought to be starting his first year when we're fifth-years."

"We'll be so _old_ by then," Helen chimed in.

"We'll know everything," I agreed.

"We'll have been through a lot," said Polly quietly.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" a male voice bellowed. Instantly, I tried to peer over the heads of my classmates to see who was speaking, but I was just a second-year, and despite my unusual height for my age there were still plenty of older students who were far taller than me. When the voice spoke again, however, I recognized it. "The Sorting will begin momentarily, so I kindly ask that you all find a seat at your House tables and sit down!"

As the taller students began to take their seats, I caught a glimpse of Hogwarts' Deputy Headmaster, Professor Damien Kayash, and his bushy black hair. I smiled. Professor Damien taught Astronomy at Hogwarts, and although I wasn't the best at the subject, I still liked the class. In addition, Professor Damien- despite being a graduate of Slytherin- was very nice, like Brooklyn, and a wonderful teacher.

"Professor Damien just goes to show that not all Slytherins are evil," I pointed out to Polly. She came from the Lider family, a small but long-lived clan who had a blatant and famous hatred towards all Slytherins. Polly had never trusted Professor Damien, Brooklyn, or any of the Slytherins we knew, for reasons unknown.

"He still reminds me of the human equivalent of dragon pox," Polly retorted as the hall quieted. "Harmless at first, but watch. I bet he fails someone on _purpose_ this year, just to spite them."

"Professor Damien wouldn't do that," Millie defended.

Then the big doors to the Great Hall, which I'd walked through ten minutes before, opened together with long, foreboding _creeeeeeeeak_ s. I hadn't even noticed Professor Damien leave, but in he paraded, at the front of a long line of first-years. Tall and short, slender and chubby, dark and pale, boy and girl- a wide variety of students populated the Hogwarts class of 2048. They passed behind Shawnee and Polly, between the Ravenclaw and Slytherin tables, wide-eyed and grinning. I smiled at a few of them, remembering how special I'd felt when I'd gotten a grin from last year's Head Boy and Ravenclaw Quidditch Captain, Terry Selwyn, before my own Sorting the previous year.

When finally all of the first-years had assembled in the front of the Hall, ceiling crackling and flashing overhead, Professor Damien smiled toothily at us. I was too far away to tell for sure, but I was pretty sure his ice-blue eyes sparkled as he ascended the steps up onto the dais where the high table at which the professors sat resided.

As he turned to face us, a stool, a scroll, and the school's scruffy, smiling Sorting Hat appeared in his hands- did he Summon them or pull them out of hidden pockets in his robes or what? Setting the stool down and putting the Hat on top of it, he opened his mouth to speak.

"All of you will now be Sorted into your Houses, first-years," he said, gazing down at them with a small smile. "The four Houses, as I explained earlier, are Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff." He pointed to each of the four tables in turn, and each House loudly screamed with pride as he announced them. When the cheering from Rossalene's House had died down, he continued. "After being Sorted by the Sorting Hat here, you will sleep in your House dormitory, attend classes, and normally be able to win or lose points for your House by respectively doing satisfactory or unsatisfactory activities. The House with the most points at the end of the year wins the House Cup, which is a most glorious honor." He gestured to the table beside ours. "Slytherin House, led by me, is our reigning champion."

Slytherin, all clad in the standard black-and-grey uniform but with hints of green here and there, burst into hoots and howls. I saw Brooklyn pumping her fists in the air, whooping, nearly as excited as she'd been when Slytherin had actually won a few months ago.

"Does he memorize that speech every year?" I murmured to Lanie on my right, who giggled and hushed me as if the professor could hear over Slytherin's wild racket.

"However," Professor Damien announced, effectively silencing the snake house, "this year will be… _quite a bit different_."

The Hall immediately completely hushed in shock. I met Shawnee's confused eyes across the table- she'd finally snapped out of her mindless thoughts at the Astronomy teacher's words- and I shrugged at her, just as unsure. What did he mean, _a bit different?_

"Headmistress Minerva McGonagall will explain more after the Sorting and the feast," the Astronomy professor finished, gesturing up to the grey-haired, steely-eyed witch sitting regally in the center seat at the high table. My face involuntarily broke into a smile as my eyes landed on Minerva McGonagall- talented witch, fierce female, and all-around amazing person. I aspired to be her someday, only, well, not a Gryffindor. "And now, would you all direct your attention to the most esteemed Sorting Hat. Let the Sorting commence!"

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 **Hello there, my wonderful Salinger Year readers and fans!**

 **I hope you've enjoyed this first foray into my main character Alyssa Salinger's second year at Hogwarts, and I also hope you'll choose to stick along for the ride. It's going to be bumpy this year for Aly... as always.**

 **If you're new to the Salinger Year family, welcome! Salinger Year is what will eventually be a seven-part series following the same young girl through all of her years at Hogwarts. _Second Year_ is the fourth of these stories, and I will post chapters regularly every Sunday until I catch up with my writing ( _Second Year_ is still under construction)! In the meantime, I encourage you to check out its predecessors in this order: first _Fifth Year_ , then _Fourth Year_ , and finally _First Year_. I do have to apologize for my writing in _Fifth Year_ and the first few chapters of _Fourth Year_ \- I was much younger when I started this series and had a tendency to write flattened or Mary-Sue-ish characters. I can promise you that they've rounded out a fair amount in the last three years, and the first few stories are worth the read anyway!**

 **In the meantime, if you've stuck with me since the beginning, you know who Zach Henson is... and today, June 11, is his birthday! I figured I'd start posting on a date pretty meaningful to a character who's incredibly important in some of the previous stories. He'll show up in this one, too, I promise. ;)**

 **Please don't forget to review, guys, I _thrive_ off of those sweet reviews.**

 **See you next Sunday!**

 **~atrfla**

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Guys... until this story gets a single review, it's on hiatus. I'm sorry, but if you like the story, you can force me to post the next chapter by leaving a review.


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